THE SPORTS ENTREPRENEURS
PODCAST
Harpreet Singh Rai, the CEO of OURA Health Ltd, a Finish company which is making a huge splash in the wearable health and wellness space through its smart ring product. He shares his stories how he became involved in the business and where he is planning to take it. Great stories on how the product works and the benefits behind it, to the future growth and plans of the business.
Key Highlights
- Coming out college wanting to be an engineer, spending his first 10 years in the financial world on Wall Street, including Eminence Capital, multi billion dollar Fund, investing in tech
- Combined his passion for health and wellness with his research in the tech space and getting into wearables as an early adopter/user
- Running into the co-founder at a grocery store – and hitting it off
- Personally investing in the company in 2016 and joining the board. Joining the company full time, in 2017 as President/CEO
- Founders from Finland, country with great history in tech and health culture (Nokia, Polar, etc)
- OURA – focus on sleep tracking – massive benefits of the right amount and type of sleep (lack of sleep is detrimental to health)
- OURA ring – how it works, the data it measures, what it does and comparison to other wearables
- “Sleep is the world’s best (legal) performance enhancing drug” quote by Matthew Walker, Author of “Why we Sleep”
- What were the first users, beyond the early “bio hackers” adopters – awareness of Sleep becoming more main stream
- Sports connection, with NBA, UFC, NFL teams all inbound requests based on the product benefits
- Covid influence on the business – very positive due to the ability to detect potential Covid infection before people show symptoms
- Shipped over 500k rings since inception, doubling every year – raised Series C, over US$ 100 mil
- Great diverse group of investors globally, from Google to Temasek (Singapore Wealth Fund), Michael Dell and others. Strategic Investors supporting growth.
- Ouraring.com – only available online, shipping to 100 countries globally – North America biggest markets, Europe and Asia growing
- What’s the future going forward. Wearable market, 200 million units globally – smart phones over 1 billion.
- Opportunities for more use cases to measure important health markers and build in preventive measures to detect heart attacks and others early signs of illnesses
- Next steps after raising the money – growth, SPACs, IPO and other options out there
- Strong growth margins and profitable business
- Challenges and how to overcome them – strong company values = solutions focused (find 3 solutions to every problem), Ubuntu (ancient African word -humanity to others)
About
Harpreet Singh Rai is the chief executive officer of Oura and a member of its board. His purpose is to be part of a team that is committed to improving the well-being of others. Under his leadership, Oura has grown to a team of nearly 100 employees and has launched its Generation 2 ring, shipping over 100,000 units to 90 different countries. He is responsible for Oura’s vision and strategy and guides decisions that ensure the organization’s financial health.
Before Oura, Rai was a portfolio manager who led the technology, media and telecom portfolio at Eminence Capital for 9nine years. He began his career working in Morgan Stanley’s merger and acquisitions group. Rai studied electrical engineering at the University of Michigan.
ALSO AVAILABLE ON
PODCAST
